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Channel 4 Breakdown

(June 2009)

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MA
Markymark
thegeek posted:

Put yourself in the shoes of the pres director that evening.
The news of MJ's death was only beginning to filter through at the time the programme went on air. It's possible that the director hadn't watched the programme all the way through, and only had the compliance form for guidance. That gives a rather limited amount of time time to decide whether the item would be offensive, and certainly no time to edit it.
The channel hadn't announced MJ's death, nor was it likely to (because you'd expect a news presenter to do that, not a continuity director). What do you want them to do? Fade out the programme and say "we're not showing you the end of TNT because it was rude to Michael Jackson, and we just found out he died"?


The announcer could have said; "Owing to last minute programme compliance issues, Channel 4 regret that this transmission of TNT has to be terminated at this point".
BA
bilky asko
Markymark posted:
thegeek posted:

Put yourself in the shoes of the pres director that evening.
The news of MJ's death was only beginning to filter through at the time the programme went on air. It's possible that the director hadn't watched the programme all the way through, and only had the compliance form for guidance. That gives a rather limited amount of time time to decide whether the item would be offensive, and certainly no time to edit it.
The channel hadn't announced MJ's death, nor was it likely to (because you'd expect a news presenter to do that, not a continuity director). What do you want them to do? Fade out the programme and say "we're not showing you the end of TNT because it was rude to Michael Jackson, and we just found out he died"?


The announcer could have said; "Owing to last minute programme compliance issues, Channel 4 regret that this transmission of TNT has to be terminated at this point".


That's a bit officious, don't you think? Rather than befuddling the viewers, Channel 4 did the simplest thing it could do, that could be understood by everyone. And, to be fair, it was a technical problem, depending on which way you take technical to mean...
ID
Irish Dan
OK - just to put a lid on this finally......

1. The programme was a late delivery - and it was a change of shift for the Network Director. Even if the ND had viewed it, it wouldn't have been picked up because they would have been on their way home.

2. The phone call came through to the pres suite in the break from PT1 to PT2. At this point pres had no idea what was going on with the whole story. When the phone call came through, the BBC were still reporting that MJ had been rushed to hospital (NOT DEAD).

3. The announcer couldn't say anything about the breaking news as he had no time to check the details of the story, and it wouldn't exactly be a good idea for a C4 announcer to "break" that kind of news without anything to back up the story.

I hope this clears things up a little.
JC
JonathanC
Markymark posted:


The announcer could have said; "Owing to last minute programme compliance issues, Channel 4 regret that this transmission of TNT has to be terminated at this point".


And I bet you love terms such as "on message" and "synergy" too. Keep it simple, and have an apology: which is what they did. Sure, wrong slide and 4HD cockup, but it was handled decently.
GE
thegeek Founding member
Irish Dan posted:
I hope this clears things up a little.
Ta for that, Dan.
DA
David
Irish Dan posted:
I hope this clears things up a little.


So what did happen on Channel 4 HD?
IS
Inspector Sands
Markymark posted:

There must have been someone 'editorial' around to have made the decision in the first place.
They are a major national TV network, no matter what time of day, they should have someone empowered with responsibility to initiate proper procedures.


Yeah, because they have 'proper procedures' for such an event! Rolling Eyes

The director on duty would be someone 'editorial' and there might be someone above them on duty, if not they'd be a phone call away.

Looks like they did a good job - it's a tough and possibly unique situation to be in
MA
Markymark
JonathanEx posted:
Markymark posted:


The announcer could have said; "Owing to last minute programme compliance issues, Channel 4 regret that this transmission of TNT has to be terminated at this point".


And I bet you love terms such as "on message" and "synergy" too.


Err, no I certainly don't !

9 days later

PT
Put The Telly On
I know hardly anyone is watching BB these days but there appears to be a problem with commercial break opt outs this evening.

Either that, or it's a badly edited BB (which wouldn't surprise me, the show's on it's last legs anyway).
ME
mediaman2007
nok32uk posted:


Either that, or it's a badly edited BB (which wouldn't surprise me, the show's on it's last legs anyway).


Which automatically makes the production team inept of editing episodes? Wink
OV
Orry Verducci
Just now Big Brother cut 'Jacko TNT Show' style, returning around 15 seconds later from what looks like the next part of show. I'm thinking there is some sort of compliance issue with tonights episode.

EDIT: Appears I'm wrong, bearing in mind I tuned in on the ad break before this happened, it seems from Digital Spy that Channel 4 started playing the part they had just played again, and obviously cut it to play the correct part.
Last edited by Orry Verducci on 9 July 2009 10:56pm
IM
IM
Orry Verducci posted:
EDIT: Appears I'm wrong, bearing in mind I tuned in on the ad break before this happened, it seems from Digital Spy that Channel 4 started playing the part they had just played again, and obviously cut it to play the correct part.


Yes this is what happened. There was something was from the start. They played two Lucozade stings then a '4' breakbumper then two adverts before cutting to the programme 'as live' (ie no opening titles and a bit of the programme cut). Later it happened again only the into break sting was cut, then after a few adverts it returned only it was playing the same part again, this went on for quite a while until Channel 4 put up a 'Programmes will return shortly' card, it then returned to what I presume was the correct part of the programme and it seemed to continue 'normally' from there. The announcer appologised at the end of the programme.

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